


Renunciation

by secondalto



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Background Relationships, Gen, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondalto/pseuds/secondalto
Summary: Everybody lives, Rose. Just this once....Everybody lives!!- 9th Doctor, The Doctor DancesSomething goes differently at Vormir





	Renunciation

**Author's Note:**

> Something that came to me in a dream. With thanks to Rainne and Citymusings for the quick once over. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

“The stone requires that you sacrifice someone you love,” the hooded figure said.

Gamora laughed. Her ‘father’ loved no one but himself. He was thwarted. They had won because he couldn’t get one of the stones. She looked up at him and told him as much. But then she saw the tear, saw the expression on his face. 

“No,” she said, backing up.

In a flash she was grabbed by his enormous hand and flung over the cliff. All she could think was how grateful she was that she had told Peter how she really felt. She waited for the inevitable. For the crack of her body hitting the ground. For the pain that would come, that would consume her all too briefly before she died. For the release of death. 

It did not come.

Gamora chanced to open her eyes. She was being lifted on a cloud of light. She was buffeted gently up and over the cliff as light and energy swirled around her. She looked down and saw the expression of disbelief on Thanos’s face. She laughed when he cried out in anger. Then as quickly as she’d been tossed to her death, a lance of light speared from the cloud, piercing through Thanos’s head. He toppled to the ground. Gamora could hardly believe her eyes. Was he truly dead? The cloud deposited her gently on the cliff, dissipating slowly.

“The stone did not accept his sacrifice,” the hooded figure pronounced. 

Gamora ignored him, approaching Thanos’s body carefully, slowly. She kicked it. Nothing happened. She moved to see the look of disappointment and incredulity on his face. The hole in the middle of his forehead stood out to her. He was dead. Defeated by his ego.

“My sister,” Gamora murmured. “She needs to see. I need…. She needs to see.” She knelt next to the arm with the gauntlet, hand hovering over the stones. “They… they need destroying.”

“There are ways of destroying them,” the hooded figure said. “You will find one. I will make your task easier.” He waved a hand over Thanos’s body. It levitated, floating in the air so that she could maneuver it back to the ship. “I wish you well, daughter of Thanos.”

She turned to glare at him. “You’re the last being who will call me that,” she growled. “I am Gamora of the Zehoberi. Remember it well.” She shifted, pushing on Thanos’s feet, leaving the figure behind.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The trip to Titan was swift. She barely remembered much past plotting the coordinates and thrusting out of the atmosphere of Vormir. With the scanners she found Nebula, as well as her crew from the Milano. The ship landed with a dull thud. She could see everyone approaching from a distance as the doors opened and the ramp lowered. Peter got to her first, wrapping her up in his arms, his face buried in her hair.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he whispered.

“You very nearly didn’t,” she replied, running a hand down his back. She smiled at Drax and Mantis. Nebula was behind them, standing back with two men and a boy she didn’t know. “Sister. Come, there is something you should see. Something you all should see.”

Gamora led them all into the ship, to where she had Thanos’s body. The gauntlet lay next to him, removed from his arm. She stayed away as all of the others circled the body. Nebula kicked and prodded, putting her finger into the hole in his head.

“How, Gamora?” Nebula asked. “Was this you?”

“No, Nebula. It was the Soul stone. It rejected his… sacrifice,” she replied.

Peter’s head came up and he pinned her with a look. “Sacrifice? You mean… he tried to….” Peter drew his blaster, firing into the body before him. “Fucker.”

“Little over the top, Quill,” one of the strange men said. “So, what are we doing about the stones?”

The second strange man was prying the green one from the gauntlet. “This is mine to protect, Stark. If it is agreeable with, Gamora, was it?”

“Yes, take it, keep it away,” she said, holding onto Nebula, who was now plastered to her side. “The others…. They need….”

“I know someone who’ll get rid of ‘em,” the first man, Stark, said. “Back on Earth. Anyway can we get a lift? I gotta get Teenage Wasteland back to his Aunt.”

“Hey,” the boy protested. 

“We can do that,” Peter offered. “Might be nice to visit some of the old stomping grounds.”

“I need a minute with Nebula,” Gamora said.

“Sure, sure, take your time. We’ll be at the Milano. Nebula knows where it is,” Peter said.

She nodded, pulling Nebula tighter against her until they were all gone. When the quiet of the ship surrounded them, Gamora pulled them towards Thanos. Dropping to their knees, they held each other as they wept for the only father they had known. For their lost childhood. For the millions upon millions Thanos had killed. As Gamora ran a hand over Nebula’s head, she whispered to her sister.

“We’ll make it right,” she said. 

Nebula nodded. “The universe will forget his name. We will be remembered.”

“Yes, yes we will,” Gamora replied, holding her sister tightly.


End file.
